Ukraine's President Wants Talks

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's embattled president, Leonid Kuchma, called for renewed negotiations Saturday to end a post-election political crisis and accused the opposition of reneging on agreements made under international mediation.

"The opposition isn't fulfilling practically any of the agreements reached at a round table that involved European politicians. That exacerbates the situation in the country," Kuchma's office quoted him as saying, a day after the country's Supreme Court canceled the results of a November runoff election that had handed victory to his candidate.

Kuchma appealed for a new round of international mediation. But he made no mention of the court's verdict, which condemned violations in voting procedures and set Dec. 26 as the date for a repeat runoff between his hand-picked successor, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, and the opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko.

Kuchma's comments came in a telephone conversation with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, whose country holds the European Union's six-month rotating presidency. The European Union sent representatives to talks among Kuchma, Yanukovych and Yushchenko in which they signed a series of pledges. The talks were scheduled to resume as early as today.

Anna Herman, a spokeswoman for Yanukovych, said Yushchenko had broken two pledges made during the negotiations: to withdraw demonstrators from government offices and to support political reforms that would weaken the office of the next president. Herman said Yanukovych would run in the new round of voting.

Opposition supporters suffered a setback in parliament Saturday when the body failed to name a new central election commission and reform electoral laws and was unable to reach an accord on another issue added to the same legislative package: constitutional changes that would shift powers from the president to the prime minister.

Yushchenko insisted he favored political reform but had agreed to take up the issue after the presidential vote was over. "We made an agreement for after the elections, and the elections haven't happened," he told demonstrators in Kiev. "We have to talk about election law first."

Unless the deadlock is broken, the same election commission that oversaw the vote that was invalidated by the Supreme Court will run the next election under the same rules.

Kuchma has refused to fire the commission, despite a parliamentary vote to dismiss it.

The euphoria of the Friday night rallies celebrating the Supreme Court verdict dissipated quickly Saturday. About 5,000 protesters converged on the parliament building and yelled "Shame!" at deputies as they watched the proceedings on an open-air television screen.

Government supporters, meanwhile, began to mount a public-relations counterattack designed to show that Yushchenko's actions were harming the country. Government television broadcast scenes of markets in eastern Ukraine, with commentators saying prices were rising. Eastern Ukraine is one of Yanukovych's strongholds.

In the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine, Yanukovych supporters opposing the Supreme Court decision urged both candidates to withdraw.

"The Supreme Court decision surprised many. Apparently, it was passed under pressure. Yushchenko's supporters are applauding, but it's we who have questions now," said Yevgeny Kushnaryov, governor of Kharkiv.

Two competing demonstrations took place Saturday in Kharkiv. One drew about 10,000 Yushchenko supporters; the other attracted 8,000 Yanukovych backers, according to news reports.